Remade: The Other
by aeoneth
Summary: A man, haunted by his past, is thrown into a war between two opposing forces. His mission to eliminate one army. But how can he do it alone? Or even with allies? Rated:M for profuse swearing and much gorey violence
1. Prologue The Void

Prologue: The Void

It was dark. A single man was the only thing in the otherwise empty void. He had brown unkempt hair which at the moment was down to his light blue eyes. He was slightly built; but he was pale, like he hadn't seen sunlight in years.

'Where am I?' thought the man. 'Wait... Who am I?'

There was no light in the room. At least, the man thought it was a room. Without any light it was hard to tell if there were any walls or even a ceiling.

"Ahhh, good. I see that you are awake, Mister Morian," came an eerie voice from the darkness.

'Morian?' thought the man. Suddenly he remembered everything. 'That's right, I'm Drake Morian. But wait who the hell is speaking?'

"Mister Morian? Hello? I do hope you have not suffered any brain damage, being frozen in time for so long."

"Frozen in ... wait. Now I know who you are, you're that bastard from Black Mesa. The one who knocked me out!" yelled Drake into the darkness.

"Now, Now. No need for such crude language Mister Morian," replied the voice as its owner stepped forward from the darkness. Drake could see that the owner of the eerie voice was indeed the man who had knocked him unconscious. Drake remembered the blue suit and briefcase as well as the ghastly pale face. The blue suit continued, "After all I thought it would be better for you to be unconscious and frozen in time, as opposed to waiting all these years."

"All these years? What do you mean by that?" replied Drake.

"Well I'm really not at liberty to say Mister Morian. Just know that it has indeed been a long time since you were last awake. And you would still be asleep if it wasn't for the fact that my employers have decided that you would be of some use to us," said the blue suit. "As such I've been obliged to give you some information, so listen closely."

Drake payed close attention to the blue suit.

"It seems that while you were asleep, an alien collective known as the combine has taken control of the planet Earth. They are hampering our plans moreso than we had initially thought allowable. Therfore, we are sending you in to deal with them. Show my employers that y decision to pluck you from Black Mesa was not an unwise choice," said the blue suit. He then began walking back into the darkness. He uttered one final sentence "Now, rise and shine."

"Wait, how the hell am I going to take on an entire race?" yelled Drake into the darkness.

He was replied with only silence, and the darkness consumed him.

_____________________________________________________________________________________  
*Authors Note* : Greetings everyone. You may remember me as the lone swordsman when i originally posted The Other about a year back. Well it seems i cannot remember my password for that account so I had to make another one. *sigh* i really must remember this one. Anywho hopefully this remake gets more attention because I'd love to hear input on what people think of this story. So here's the remade prologue. Enjoy.


	2. Chapter 1 Awakening

Chapter 1: Awakening

He awoke. But this time, Drake was not in the dark and endless void. This time he was on a bed, it was a poor excuse for one. Having nothing but a mattress on the floor, but nonetheless it was a bed.

'Thank God I'm away from that damn blue suit,' he thought. 'That guy just creeps me the hell out. All the same, where am I now?'

Drake got up. Off of the bed and stretched his arms as he moved to the window. He was in the middle of a city.

'Or a ghost town,' Drake thought. 'The streets are almost bare and lifeless.'

Suddenly there was a loud banging on the door.

'What the...' he began to think.

"Oh no, they've come for us," Drake heard someone in the next room say.

"Shhh. Maybe they're knocking on another door," said another voice.

There was a second banging. This time louder.

"No they're knocking on our door. I just saw the thing move," said the first voice.

"Shit. We need to get out of here," said the second voice.

Drake felt the same way. He needed to get out of here. Whatever those two were guilty of, he didn't want to be a part of.

There was a third knock. Even louder.

"Break it down!" he heard a voice over what seemed like a short range radio.

Drake moved to the window again and slid it open. At that time he heard the door crash and splinter as something broke it down. He then moved out the window and sidled along the ledge.

'This won't do,' he thought. Then he saw a clothes line that ran from the building he was almost falling from, to an open window across from him. And as luck would have it, a pair of trousers hung from the line. 'Well, it's this or face those radio heads.'

He grabbed the trousers and mounted for a zip line with them. He could hear something being mumbled over the short range radio. He didn't care what it was, he just wanted to get out. He pushed off the wall and began to zip line across the street.

'Crap. With my weight there's no way this thing'll hold,' he thought.

But somehow it did. He made it completely across the street and into the window. He landed on his head kind of but it didn't matter to him. He had done it. He got up to look and see if he'd been spotted.

'No one at the window,' he thought as he examined the building he had just come from. But, when he looked near the roof he understood why they hadn't bothered intensively looking for him.

There on the roof, was a group of the black and white armor wearing "radio heads", But they hadn't even spotted him, they were too keen on the other figure on the roof. There in a blue jumpsuit, running from the radio heads was the man that Drake hadn't seen since Black Mesa. The man whom he had fought alongside only once, and was awed by the combat skill displayed during that fight.

There was Gordon Freeman.


	3. Chapter 2 Complications

Chapter 2: Complications

So he was still alive. Gordon Freeman was still alive.

'Well, If I'm lucky I can get him to help me in my fight,' thought Drake.

"Still, he's run off over that way, and I'm stuck over here with a platoon of radio heads between us," he sighed out loud.

"Yes, the lack of any armament would make your mission rather difficult," Drake heard a familiar, yet unfriendly voice say. Drake turned around and there on the bed frame sat the blue suit. "Still, I cannot interfere in your mission. My employers would not like this."

"To hell with your employers, and your secrecy," yelled Drake. "How long have I been incapacitated, who the hell are those guys, why is Gordon Freeman running from them, and what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"All in due time, Mister Morian," replied the blue suit. "Still, you've done well to adapt to the situation. I just wanted to see your reaction to that situation. So, I will tell you a small amount of information. Head towards the river and you will find allies. If you make it there, I'll even leave you a 'volunteer' I have handpicked."

With this the blue suit got up and walked toward the door of the room. Once he opened the door he stopped and said, "Continue to impress me, Mister Morian." He then walked out the door and quietly closed it behind him.

"Hey not so fast you." Drake yelled as he ripped open the door. However, the blue suit was nowhere to be seen. "Fucking politicians," he muttered.

*************

Drake quickly ducked into the doorway of the building. He had just looked out the door and saw two armoured vehicles unload two platoons of radio heads, right in front of the building with two smokestacks down the street. Almost all of the radio heads went into the building, only two stayed outside in front of the building.

Drake took another look around the corner. One of the radio heads turned and looked in his direction. Drake quickly ducked into the doorway once again.

'Shit, did he see me?' Drake thought to himself. He didn't want to see what might happen to him if he was caught seeing what he was seeing. He entered the building's lobby and slightly hid himself in the closet.

The radio head got closer to the building. He got to the door and stood there. Drake could hear the radio head breathing into the radio.

"Heh, civilians really need to keep their doors shut. If we ration the electricity any more then they'll have no heat for the winter." He heard the radio head say. Then the actual radio crackled to life. "Metro cop, unit 21709, Platoon 6882 and 7987 are both reporting unusual lifesigns. Go inside and see what has gone wrong." The radio head then grunted and sighed, "Damn, Overwatch. Why can't they just ask 6882 and 7987 themselves."

'So they're called Metro cops, huh?' Drake thought. 'Damn it, now's not the time. I have to get rid of them. One's going in, maybe I can get rid of the other one."

Drake felt like he waited there for and eternity. The metro cop who had just walked near him had returned to the second metro cop. The two seemed to talk for a short while, and then Unit 21709, as Drake had heard the first metro cop be called, entered the smokestack building. Drake had to choose his timing carefully; if he went too early he would be spotted by the remaining metro cop. If he waited the other two platoons would come back, and might be spotted. He didn't want to take that chance.

The remaining metro cop started patrolling the cars, once he was on the other side Drake rushed up to the nearer armoured car. Time seemed to slow down for Drake; he waited. Once he heard the breaths coming through the radio on one side of the car, Drake ran to the opposite side. He needed a weapon, but there was nothing he could use.

He almost ran around the car on the same side as the metro cop. Once he spotted the cop he quickly reversed his movement and swung around the car again. Luckily, the metro cop hadn't heard him. So Drake peeked around the car. To his delight he saw something he could use, there on the cops utility belt was a stun baton.

'Maybe if I sneak up on him I can take it off and knock him out,' Drake thought. It was the best he could come up with at the moment and time was short.

He ducked around the corner and stayed low as he approached the cop. Eight feet, six feet, four feet, he got closer. Once he was two feet from the metro cop, he lunged and swiped the baton; tackling the metro cop accidently in the process.

"What the ..." Drake heard the metro cop exclaim. But he wouldn't let the cop continue. Instinctively, he found the switch to turn the baton on. He swung and made direct contact with the head. The radio, beeped the started to spew static, before the Overwatch voice came through.

"Unit down at, tenement block; nearby units engage," Overwatch said.

"What's there going to be to engage? I'm outta here," Drake said out loud. He found talking to himself comforting in an odd way. Of course, it had kept him sane during the Black Mesa Incident. He bolted down the street and ran into a nearby alley.

He kept running, he hopped over fences, climbed fire escapes; he did anything just to keep moving. However, almost every turn had another small group of metro cops. They guarded doors, which seemed to lead to rooms with even more cops doing something to someone. Whatever, it was it sounded painful.

Only a few metro cops ran after him, the others continued to guard their posts. Drake kept running, but the cops always seemed close behind.

He ducked into an alley within an alley, hoping the move would throw them off. All the same he kept moving down this small alley.


	4. Chapter 3 Allies

Chapter 3: Allies

Drake began to slow down. His stamina had run out, even though he was pumped full of adrenaline. He needed to rest, but not in the open. If the radio heads came this way he didn't want to get spotted. He pushed himself down the alley a little more; there was an opening into a courtyard a couple of yards away. He could rest once he hid himself sufficiently.

The courtyard was rather small but it still had plentiful cover. Coming out of the alley he saw a couple of dead trees straight ahead. To the right of those trees sat a decrepit old jungle gym with another entrance to the courtyard behind it. And directly to Drake's right was a pile of rubble, composed of collapsed portions of the wall of the building. It was here that Drake decided he would rest. He scaled the rubble and hid behind what remained of the wall.

Minutes passed. For a while Drake couldn't hear anything, no footsteps, no voices, just silence. Then he began to hear someone coming. Footsteps, but he couldn't hear any clanking of metal. Whoever, it was didn't seem like they were wearing any armour. Then the footsteps stopped. Silence rested in for a couple of seconds, and then Drake could hear the sound of cement falling onto cement, and a slight clanking of hollow metal tubes. These sounds continued as Drake waited hoping whoever was there would soon leave. One minute passed then two, then five, then ten, then fifteen. Drake was getting worried that whoever was there wouldn't be leaving.

_Damn it, what the hell are they doing? _he thought.

Drake couldn't wait any longer. He needed to get out of there now. There was only one person; he could easily take whoever it was down. He reached for the stun baton which he had earlier tied to his pant's belt loops.

Drake leapt around the corner, raising the baton as he got out of the corner. But to his surprise he did not see a soldier, but rather a girl.

She appeared to be around her twenties, she was a Caucasian with long brown hair that had been augmented with pale purple highlights which hung straight down her body. Her body was slender, but still retained a noticeable amount of muscle. Her pale blue eyes seemed to glow when compared to the rest of her body, which was slightly sullied from dirt and mortar. She wore a similar garment to him, but hers had been cut off just above her navel, and it remained opened near the top partially revealing her... "features." She had been pulling metal pipes, and wires out of the rubble

The girl looked up at Drake, who was still standing there gawking at her with the baton raised in his hand. He snapped to attention and quickly brought the baton down.

"Hi there," he said, smiling a little bit. He could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. "Sorry if I startled you, I thought you were someone else." _Great cover,_ he thought, _now she's going to think you're a psycho that had premeditated murdering someone here._

"That's alright," she said as her attention returned to the rubble, "You can't be too safe in this world we live in."

"Right," Drake said sheepishly, "Anyway you wouldn't happen to know which way leads to the river would you?"

Upon mentioning the river Drake saw the girls grip tighten on the metal pipe which she had just grabbed. Her head rose as her eyes set themselves on Drake.

"And why would you be wanting to go there?" she asked.

"A... um... friend, yeah, a friend of mine said he was going to meet me there," he replied.

"Wow, that's the weakest story I've ever heard from one of you guys. You should know better than anyone that human gatherings are forbidden," she retorted as she pulled the pipe from the rubble.

"You guys?" Drake asked confused. Suddenly, his ears picked up the crackle of a radio coming from the alley to their left. "Shit, I was hoping those radio heads would have lost track of me."

"Radio heads?" the girl asked. Then her eyes widened. "Oh no, CPs. I can't carry all of this myself."

"Hey girl," Drake said to her, "Do you know somewhere I could hide? These soldier like guys are after me and..."

"Yes, I do," she interrupted, "but if you want to come with me your going to have to grab as much of those pipes and wires as you can."

"Okay," Drake replied. He grabbed every last pipe that wasn't still buried in the ground, then gathered up the wires the girl had missed. "You lead the way and I'll follow."

The pair ran across the courtyard, bypassing the broken playground and dashed into the second alley. Not long after the ducked into a smaller alley on the left. Then they reached a T-intersection and made a right. Following this path they continued for several more minutes. Eventually the path started to slope down until they ended up in a storm drain. The girl ran to a sewer pipe, and pulled on the grate causing it to open.

"Come on get in," she commanded.

"Right," replied Drake.

After Drake clamoured into the pipe, the girl quickly jumped in and closed the grate.

"We should be safe for now," she sighed, "But all the same let's keep moving."

"You're the boss," said Drake as the pair started to walk. "Hey do you mind if I ask you a question... umm."

"Sierra, Sierra Cailim," the girl said.

"Ah, sorry I guess I should've introduced myself earlier. Drake Morian," Drake replied. "Anyway I was wondering, why the change in heart. Before those... what d'ya call them? CPs? Well before they showed up you looked like you were ready to beat my skull in."

"It's simple," replied Sierra as she flashed a smile to Drake, "Once I found out they were after you, I knew that you couldn't have been one of them."

"A CP?" asked Drake.

"Right well sort of. The Trans-human arm of Civil Protection, or Metro Cops look just like you or me, and thats how the infiltrate our stations," replied Sierra.

"Stations?" asked Drake, as he started to get confused again.

"Yeah, the underground railroad? What did you hit your head and forget the last twenty years?" joked Sierra.

"Maybe, the last thing I remember was being in Black Mesa just before..." he stopped himself in mid sentence. His head had started throbbing uncontrollably. _That's right, _he thought_, The last thing I remember is being in Black Mesa's oldest teleportation chamber. Right before... before... before what?_

"Black Mesa?" repeated Sierra. "That was twenty years ago. The only people that had been there are easily in their fifties at least by now."

"Twenty years? I've been unconscious for twenty years?" Drake said aloud.

"Wow a coma victim? But your around my age, don't coma victims still age physically even if they don't mentally?" asked Sierra.

"It's a long story, and truth be told I don't even know if it's real. I could be dreaming right now. And yet it feels like it is real," replied Drake.

"Well, If this is all your dream can you make the Combine disappear and return the Earth to normal, your dream is out nightmare," replied Sierra sarcastically.

Drake chuckled. "Okay fine, it's not a dream."

"In any event, were getting close to the safe house you can tell me everything when we get there," Sierra said.

"I can't even remember half of everything, but I'll tell you whatever I can," replied Drake.

The pair continued through the sewer, eventually they came to another grate which Sierra opened up. Once she had shut the grate behind them, Sierra lead Drake to a nearby building; another tenement building albeit a much larger one. But rather than go through the front door, she went around the back and opened up a wine cellar door. Drake followed her in. Once Drake was in, she shut the cellar door tight and picked up the metal and wires she had put down.

"Well, it's not as much as I'd have liked to bring back, but it's more than we've been getting recently," exclaimed Sierra aloud. "The professor will like this. Hey wait a minute; you said you were at Black Mesa right Drake?"

"Yeah," replied Drake.

"The professor worked there before all this, maybe he'll recognize you," said Sierra. "Come on, he's on the top floor."

She brushed up against Drake as she passed by him. As she started ascending the stairs Drake could swear he saw her blushing. He grabbed a couple of the pipes she had dropped and followed after her. They went up two flights of stairs. The first floor had been completely barren, But Then Drake saw a barricade on the second floor with two people standing nearby.

"Sierra," called one of them; a male who looked to be in his thirties. "I think something followed you home."

"Can I keep him?" Sierra asked jokingly.

"Well, he is cute," replied the second person; a female around Sierra's age. "I guess if you don't take care of him, I could."

"Oh, no. He's all mine," Sierra said smiling. "Anyway, I'm on my way to show him off to the professor."

"Good idea. He'll want to talk to the lad," replied the male.

"Why do I feel like a puppy?" muttered Drake as he followed Sierra up the second flight of stairs.

"Don't worry kid, Sierra's a good girl, she'll take excellent care of you," said the female as Drake passed by.

Sierra and Drake continued up the building, and as they got higher Drake began to see more people. All of them were garbed in the same blue jumpsuits that he himself was wearing. Such little individuality, Drake could barely stand it.

The two finally reached the top floor. Two people were standing at the end of the stairs guarding a double doorway. They bid Sierra hello, and welcomed Drake once she introduced him. The guards then opened the doors for the two and bid them entrance.

The area they had entered felt similar to a lab Drake had frequently visited in Black Mesa. To Drakes left there were bookcases filled with books on biology and mechanical engineering, as well as bio-mechanics and other similar studies. On the next wall between two windows was a table with papers scattered all over it. Just above the table was a cork board with various blueprints, some of which had been scratched out. To Drakes right there was two cabinets on either side of a doorway to another room. These cabinets had a lot of interesting machinery and organic matter sitting on the shelves.

"Professor," Sierra called out. "Professor, I brought you those pipes and wires. Heck I even did you one better and brought someone you may know."

_Oh, he knows me alright,_ thought Drake. He recognized much of the work that lay strewn about. His head throbbed as he remembered who it belonged to.

"Doctor Redwald," Drake called out. "I see you're still as messy as ever."

"It can't be," Drake heard a voice from the other room say.

The sound of a shuffling chair quickly followed. An older Caucasian man, around his sixties, shuffled through the doorway. He was hobbled over slightly, and was missing his left arm. His face was marred by three scars that went diagonally up from left to right. However, the scars did not seem to affect his emerald green eyes. The man was almost completely bald, save for several strands of hair that still remained on the right side of his head. He was donned in a white lab coat and burgundy jeans, with brown loafers covering his feet.

"I... I don't believe it," said Dr. Redwald. "Drake Morian, it IS you. I had thought for sure that you had perished when they detonated the nuclear stockpile to destroy Black Mesa."

"Wait, what? They destroyed Black Mesa?" asked Drake, startled upon hearing this.

"Yes, you mean you didn't know?" replied Dr. Redwald, confusedly.

"Drake says he can't remember anything that happened during the incident," Sierra told the doctor. "As a matter of fact, he can't remember anything from the last twenty years. Speaking of which, don't you think it's odd that he hasn't aged a bit from then?"

"Hmm, I hadn't really noticed it but yes now that you mention it; he hasn't aged at all," said Dr. Redwald. He then began to mutter something to himself; Drake managed to overhear something about cryogenics.

_Is that what happened to me? Was I cryogenically frozen for twenty years?_ Drake thought. His right arm began to feel stiff, he grabbed it.

"Are you all right?" Sierra asked.

"Hmm, is your arm troubling you my boy?" questioned Dr. Redwald.

"Ahh it's just a little stiff is all. Probably from all the excitement earlier," Drake replied.

"Well, if it's been twenty years since it was last examined then the machinery might have degraded a little bit. Why don't you let me take a look at it," offered the doctor.

"Machinery?" questioned Drake. "What machinery?"

"Good God, you must have certainly done something to mess up your head. Don't you remember that your arm had been shot off and that we replaced it with a techno-organic prosthetic?" asked Dr. Redwald. "That's why you were in Black Mesa to begin with. We needed someone to test it out to ensure that there were no flaws."

_My arm isn't real?_ thought Drake beginning to get another migraine. _Wait, yes I remember now. The training exercise, the transfer, the surgery; I can remember all of it._

"Wait, Professor," Sierra began. "Do you mean to say that Drakes arm is the same as my arm. That neither are real?" She held up her left arm.

"They are similar," explained the doctor. "Drakes arm however was an early prototype, it's not nearly as refined as yours is my dear. But that's why I'm going to examine his arm, if I'm right, and I always am, the only major difference between the two of you, should be the mental control of your arms."

"So if you examine my arm I should be able to move it faster?" asked Drake.

"Not really," replied Dr. Redwald. "The control I'm talking about is your ability to integrate your arm with Xenian life forms. After all, we did use them as the basis of the arms. In any event, we should examine your arm quickly Drake. Come now follow me into the lab."

Drake followed him, dazed by the onslaught of information he had just obtained. Fake arm, Xenian lifeforms? What did it all mean?

Dr. Redwald shuffled back into the room he had been in before. Drake and Sierra joined him.

This room was much larger than the one which they had resided in before. It was easily twice as long as the other room, and about 50 percent bigger in width. This room housed several more tables, al randomly strewn about the floor, which had various pieces of machinery on them. At the far wall on Drakes right was several computer towers, all connected together to produce the storage for Dr. Redwald's experiment data. Several other machines were connected to this mainframe, one of which the doctor sat in front of and motioned for Drake to near. Drake walked toward the doctor who began to attach some sensors to the machine.

"Now Drake do you remember what this machine is for?" asked the doctor.

Drake thought for a moment before he answered, "It monitors the brainwaves used to make body parts move, right?"

"Precisely. However, it also has the ability to send certain signals to the brain, essentially teaching the brain," replied the doctor as he began attaching sensors to Drake's temples and right forearm. "What I'm going to do is send the instructions to allow your arm to integrate with Xenian life forms, into your brain. The process is relatively quick and painless save for maybe a shock or two. But you will feel very tired, once it is done."

"What do I have to do?" asked Drake.

"Just relax; well be finished in a few minutes. Though you might not wake up for a couple of hours," explained the doctor.

Drake began to feel tired. His eyelids began to narrow and close. Before Drake knew it his eyes flittered, then closed completely. However, he awoke just as quickly as he had fallen asleep. Drake felt a cold, liquid-like feeling on his face. His eyes fluttered open to see what looked like thousands of little black eyes staring back at him.

"What the fuck!" he yelled as he jumped onto his feet. The creature the eyes belonged to fell to the ground and rolled onto its feet.

"Hmm, ahh Jeffery. I was wondering where you went to. Come here boy. Heel," called Dr. Redwald. The creature walked over to the doctor. "Well Drake, I see you're awake, and that you've met my faithful hound."

"Professor, that thing is not a pet, it's a wild alien," stated Drake as he examined the thing that had just been on his chest. It was as big as a dog, but instead of having a neck and head, this creature had a thousand little black eyes in a honeycomb like orientation at the front of it. The mouth of the creature, if it even had one, Drake presumed was under the 'chin'. It had two forward legs, just behind the chin, followed by the belly and then one rear leg. Blue-green stripes ran across its yellow back. The creature stood behind Dr. Redwald and peered at Drake.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed the doctor. "Jeffery is no terror. He is simply a domesticated houndeye. You'd be surprised at how intelligent they are, and how loyal they become to one who takes care of them."

"I'll take your word for it doctor. But that thing still makes me uneasy, remember that they tried to kill me before" Drake said as he pointed at the creature. "In any event how long was I out for?"

"Surprisingly, only ten minutes," replied Dr. Redwald. "But then again you always did have an energetic personality and a rather quick recovery rate."

"What happened to Sierra?" Drake asked as he slumped back down onto the couch.

"She took the majority of those pipes you two brought, down to the sub basement. We've had a bit of a problem with plumbing down there," the doctor replied as he returned to his computer.

"Yeah? So this place is just like Black Mesa. Falling apart at the seams," retorted Drake.

The doctor chuckled. "I guess in that way yes it is. But we have so much less in the way of machinery. Not like Eli Vance. He set up a laboratory in an old hydro dam on the river not too far from here. Called it Black Mesa East too."

"No kidding? So where are we anyways?" Drake questioned the Doctor. However, before he could get a reply the ground started to vibrate and shake. A loud, deep wail sounded in the distance. "What the fuck was that?"

The Doctor got up and moved into the adjoined room and looked out of one of the windows. Drake looked out of the other window. What he saw astonished him. There on the horizon was the biggest tower he'd ever seen. The top of the tower disappeared into the clouds, and it seemed to be moving. Parts of the tower were opening and moving revealing metal bars that ran underneath outer walls. These bars seemed to be emitting clouds of something. They were so far away they only looked like little black particles. But there were millions of them, maybe even billions, and they started to look like an ominous miasma seeping from the tower.

"My god, the Citadel," exclaimed the doctor. "I've only seen it open like this once before; and that was when they first came here."

"They?" queried Drake.

"The Combine; a collective alien race that managed to enslave all of humanity, in a matter of hours. Honest to god even with all of our might, they conquered the world in seven hours. Guess what they called the war," replied the doctor.

"The seven hours war?" Drake randomly guessed.

"Precisely," confirmed the doctor. "In any event is seems something has disturbed the Combine Citadel." But what could it be? Did they find one of our stations? No they wouldn't go all out like this."

"Maybe it was Freeman," Drake joked.

"That lad hasn't been around for twenty years," sighed the doctor. "But we could definitely use him now."

"Really because I saw him earlier today," drake said casually.

"WHAT?" yelled the doctor. "You saw Freeman? He IS here? But how can that be? It's been twenty years. I'm sure by now we would have heard something about him."

Suddenly, the door to the room burst off of its hinges. The splintered door fell to the ground with a violent smash. In what remained of the door way stood Sierra, leg extended, gasping for her breathe.

"Doctor, have you seen?" she said quickly. Then she noticed Drake and quickly brought her leg down and looked away from his direction. Drake stood there frozen in terror and awe.

"Yes my dear, I have seen it," replied the doctor, unfazed by the fact that he no longer had a door. "And I think I know why. Apparently, Drake saw Gordon Freeman earlier today."

"The ... I mean, Freeman? Really?" Sierra stumbled to say as she turned to Drake, who had managed to gather his strength again.

"Yeah," he replied coolly. "He was running from the same kinds of guys I had been running from."

"The CPs?" asked Sierra. "Did you see if they caught him?"

"No. The last I saw he was running over the rooftops and headed toward some sort of refinery or something. All I know is it had two humongous smokestacks," Drake replied.

"Well, that's good. Kleiner's lab is over there so he shouldn't have gotten caught. Especially since Alyx is with him," said the doctor.

"Not to mention Barney's undercover with the CPs. So if he got caught Barney could spring him loose," Sierra added.

"Okay you guys have lost me," Drake said flatly. Then he picked up on a sound, a high pitched screech that started quiet but was getting louder. Drake peered past the Doctor and saw Jeffery crouched and shivering.

"SHIT! Look out doc that thing is going to blow." He then ran straight at the doctor and tackled him to the ground. He waited for the explosion to occur. But nothing happened. The screech was still happening and Jeffery was shivering, but he did not explode. Sierra walked over and picked up the creature. The screeching stopped.

"I think he was talking about you Jeffy," she cooed into the creatures ... 'ear'. Jeffery simply chirped at her.

"Wait... what?" Drake asked, confused.

"God blast it Drake. Would you kindly get off of me, so that I can accurately assess whether or not you've broken any bones," the doctor said clearly aggravated.

Drake picked himself up off the doctor and then helped him to his feet. The doctor stretched his arm and twisted his body around.

"Ahh excellent. I have at least two broken ribs," the doctor diagnosed. He seemed happy.

"Why do you sound pleased with this?" asked Drake, confused.

"My boy I've been replacing severed limbs and mending broken muscle," replied the doctor. "Fixing this will be child's play, heck I could make them better. Maybe I'll make some Kevlar coated ribs."

Drake couldn't even reply to this. He simply stared at Sierra and indicated he feared for the doctor's sanity. Sierra giggled at this. However she quickly recomposed herself and spoke.

"Doctor we have to try and get some of the people in the railway going. If those are scanners then they'll find the station not far from here. And then we'll have Combine storming through the place.

"Yes. Yes you're absolutely right my dear," replied the doctor. "Drake, you should go with her. See what the world is like now-a-days."

"Alright. I'll go. Though you wouldn't happen to have anything with a bit more protection than these clothes would you?" He asked.

"We've got some spare CP armour downstairs. You can grab some from there," replied Sierra. She then turned and headed to the stairs.

"Drake, before you go let me tell you something about your arm," he doctor said to Drake. "Now listen you're arm can now interact with Xenian life forms. What this means is it will copy the genetic structure of whatever life form you touch. Now, I'd let you test it on Jeffery but unfortunately at this stage it has a nasty habit of; killing, whatever it tries to copy."

"So basically touch whatever Xenian life form I want to and my arm will copy it?" asked Drake.

"Yes, it also has some genetic memory so you won't have to touch the creature again to regain its abilities. Though it seems some creatures have a control over some sort of substance that you'll need to replenish. At this point I'm calling it aether, but the Vortigaunts seem to have their own name for it. Oh wait that's right you don't know about the Vortigaunts," the doctor said interrupting himself. He smirked before continuing, "Well I'm sure you'll be fine. But let me just say this, be careful what you shoot. Do you remember the lightning flingers? Well when you see one don't shoot it. They are our friends now."

"The guys who can shoot lightning?" Drake repeated. "Were friends? Why don't they want to kill us anymore? They're obviously capable."

"It's... complicated," replied the doctor. "For now just know that they are our friends, and if you want to know why then when you see one ask him, or her... it."

"Yeah alright," replied Drake as he began walking toward the door. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

"Nope, not that I know of."

"Awesome."

Drake then descended the stairs.

When he reached the bottom he managed to see Sierra standing there. She was no longer in her 'modified' jumpsuit. Now she was wearing real jeans, and had donned a green t shirt which she had then put a vest over top of. The vest looked to be made of Kevlar or whatever substance the combine made their cop's vests out of. It had room for several ammo clips of various sizes in the pockets. Sierra was standing there checking a pistol. She must have heard him coming down the stairs as she stopped looking at it and focused her attention on him.

"We'll good to see your going to join me. Come over here and you can get changed. Don't worry I won't look."

"Well it's good to see twenty years later we're still respecting privacy," Drake replied, absentmindedly. He walked toward her, and passed her as she directed him toward a separated room. She handed him some real clothes as well as a similar vest to hers. Once he was in the room he saw that the vest he had was slightly larger than hers and had an attached holster for his stun baton. He got dressed quickly, and exited the room. He paraded his new ensemble before Sierra.

"Good everything fits. Now listen, these vests can be charged up to create some sort of shield around your body. But every time it deflects a bullet it loses some charge so you'll want to try and keep the battery full," she explained.

"Got it," Drake replied. "Anyway, were wasting daylight so let's get going."

"Right," she said. She holstered her pistol and led him toward the exit.

When they arrived at the cellar again, they were surprised to see Dr. Redwald awaiting them. He seemed to be taking to an alien of sorts. This alien was brown and had one large red eye with what looked like two more eyes above the large one, however they were only half open, like they were sleeping. It had three arms, two protruding like human arms and a third coming out of the 'stomach' of the creature. Its legs however looked like they were stuck on backwards even thought the feet were pointing in the correct direction. It took Drake every ounce of self control to prevent himself from lunging, baton ready, at the creature.

"Ahhh, so this is the Morian," the creature stated in its growl like speech.

"No this is Drake Morian, not THE Morian," replied the doctor. "Morian is just his last name not his title."

"Names and titles have no meaning to us," the creature stated. "Yet we remember the Morian well. There are no false veils of time which separate us. He has helped the Freeman and for that we honour him."

"Umm, thanks?" Drake replied. "Yeah sorry about the whole; killing your friends back in Black Mesa, thing."

"We cannot forget those whose chords you cut. Forgiveness is not ours to bestow," the creature replied.

"Yes, Drake the Vortigaunts do not seem to hold a grudge for Black Mesa yet they are not so willing to forgive us for killing them," the doctor explained.

"We realize that you defended yourselves from us while we were under the Nihilanth's control. With the Nihilanth's bond with the mortal coil severed we became free and our transgressions withered," spoke the Vortigaunt cryptically.

"Riiigghhhhtttt," Drake exhaled. "Anyway, what's up doc? You forget to tell me something?"

"No but I did want to give you this," said the doctor as he pulled a pistol out from behind his back. He held it with the grip pointing toward Drake. "It's not a s new as some of the Combines pistols, but it packs more of a punch."

"A Beretta 9mm?" asked Drake after examining the pistol.

"Sort of, it's been modified a little bit so it's slightly better than a Beretta," the doctor replied. "It got me out of Black Mesa, and I've been taking excellent care of it. So it should serve you well."

"Thanks doc," Drake replied. He made sure it had a fully loaded clip and then holstered the gun. "But what about ammo?"

"The combine didn't exactly upgrade human firearms, but they have been producing the ammo for them. If you run out Metro Cops always carry a pistol with the same ammo," Sierra interjected.

"Right, so ammos not a concern, got it," replied Drake. "Then we'd better get going."

"It would not be wise for the Morian to go unprotected," the Vortigaunt said blocking Drake from moving forward.

"Yes Drake. You should let the Vortigaunt charge your armour a little bit for you," the doctor agreed.

The Vortigaunt raised all three of its hands to the center of its body. It began to hum quietly as it closed its eyes. Drake saw small blue sparks begin to crackle around the hands. Then a bolt of electricity jolted out and struck the armour. Remarkably, to Drake, he was not cooked alive. Instead he watched as the armour absorbed the electricity and dispersed it evenly around his body. The Vortigaunt continued for another fifteen seconds before it brought its arms down and opened its eyes.

"That should tide the Morian," it replied. The Vortigaunt turned to Sierra.

"It's alright, my armours already charged," Sierra said as she showed the wrist of the armour. There was a small computer display with a full battery on it.

"Ahhhh, the Sierra Cailim is a forward thinking person. An excellent trait for an aspiring tactician," the Vortigaunt replied.

The doctor sighed. "Yes, Sierra will be an excellent tactician, when she's ready. But for now she must focus on the railway. In any event you two should hurry. I'm afraid the two of us have wasted enough of your time."

"Don't worry, we'll be back soon," Drake replied as he opened the door. Sierra quickly followed him.

The two walked for a good distance in silence. Once they had moved about a block away, Drake spoke to Sierra.

"So what was all that about? You being a tactician," he asked.

"The resistance is going to need tacticians if we want to win the fight against the Combine. If it results in all out war, tacticians will be a necessity. We don't have that many but myself and a lot of others are getting trained to be field tacticians, so that we'll be able to win the war," she replied.

"Oh so that's why the doctor was so worried about that statement," Drake said.

"Well that and he thinks of me as his daughter. My real parents died during the seven hour war. I can't even remember their faces. I was only one at the time. But they trusted Dr. Redwald with me when they went to fight. When they died he took me and kept us hidden here, he protected me and taught me all sorts of things. He even gave me a new arm," she replied.

"I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you to revisit those memories," Drake said, apologetically.

"It's fine. The doctor is the only family I can remember so It doesn't hurt as much for me as it might for someone else," she said. The quiver in her voice said otherwise to Drake.

"What about your arm. You said it was like mine, which indicates to me that you lost it somehow," Drake said trying to get her to forget.

"Well, if you must know. I lost my arm about four years ago. A couple of friends and I decided that we wanted to see the city after curfew. We didn't realise the curfew was implemented to keep us safe from the CPs in the city at night. We got caught for 'Unauthorised human gathering'. We ran, we were chased until we made it to the train yard. We tried to lose the CPs by ducking between trains. I made it into a cargo train. But one of my 'friends' was in there already. She panicked and didn't want to get found by the CPs so she shoved me out, right onto another pair of tracks. Only these ones had a train using them. I tried to scramble up and get out of the way. But I tripped and my left arm fell onto the tracks. The train ran it over," Drake could see her twitch and wince as she said this. She grabbed her left arm and continued. "It hurt but I knew I had to get up. With my right arm I got up. I started walking toward the building the professor had occupied. I don't know how I didn't bleed out, but I managed to get to the professor and he quickly assisted me. He gave me some morphine so that it would stop hurting. After that I kind of passed out. Maybe it was the trauma of having a limb removed, or the blood loss, or the excitement of everything catching up to me, or a combination of anything. All I know is when I woke up I was lying on a table with nothing but a blanket covering me. A Vortigaunt was standing over the professor who seemed to be falling asleep as he sat at a desk. When he heard me get up he turned and almost collapsed as he ran and hugged me. Then I noticed that I had my arm back. The professor later told me that he'd been in cloning and theoretical limb replacement. And that he'd done a similar procedure on a soldier when he was in Black Mesa." As soon as she had said this her eyes widened a little bit and she glanced at Drake. "He must have meant you. But what about you, he never told me how you lost your arm."

"I was in the military obviously. No special story, just a young country boy willing to fight for his country. So I went to boot camp. Learned the basics of being a soldier. You know firearms training, hand to hand combat, first aid in the field. Graduated at the top of my group. We were going to be deployed in Iraq, so to get ready we decided to do a little bit of a not so live fire exercise, to get used to the experience of being so close to death without actually killing each other. We used rubber bullets, dummy grenades etc. Well during the exercise my group had a grenade thrown at it. Now normally these things would mean we were out but they wouldn't badly hurt us. One of the guys tried to get rid of it but got shot and he dropped the grenade. I ran over to get rid of it, but it blew up in my hand. Apparently this grenade wasn't deadly, but it wasn't a dummy grenade either. Something shredded my hand, the nerves got destroyed and my arm had to be amputated. I never went to war. But I was told about a project in Black Mesa. I didn't want to be logistical support when I could fight, so I requested a transfer to Black Mesa. When they accepted me I was told to report to Dr. Redwald in Theoretical Aesthetics. He showed me what they were working on and when he mentioned that they were looking for people willing to be test subjects for the project, I immediately signed up. They put me under the knife and gave me this arm. It took another six months for me to completely regain control of my arm. And then the resonance cascade happened. After that, I'm guessing I was in some sort of cryogenic sleep. Because next thing I knew; I woke up, got chased out of a building and down an alley to well, you."

"And you don't know how you were put in cryogenic sleep?" she asked.

"Not a damn clue," he replied.

"Well either way it's in the past. For now let's just keep moving. Follow me," she commanded as she picked up her pace.

Drake followed behind her.


End file.
